As Jeff Bezos famously said, “We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.”
Getting an idea that people need and want seems like hitting a jackpot. But you barely get started when you reach it 🥲
When building your product or startup, your main goal should be to create and deliver value to your users.
This is crucial for retaining people and driving continuous growth. Because without that, it’s just a product that’s lying there like the gazillions out there.
And we don’t want that, do we?
Providing value means giving your customers
- what they want,
- when they want it,
- and how they want it.
Sounds simple, right? But understanding what value means to your users and consistently delivering it can be tricky.
Let’s get started. 👇🏼
1. What Your Users Need: Understanding Market Research
Let’s say you’ve identified a problem and want to solve it.
The next step is figuring out how to give users exactly what they need.
This process, known as market research, involves gathering, analyzing, and interpreting information about your target market.
Market research helps answer important questions like:
- Who are your target customers? What are their demographics, behaviors, and preferences?
- What solutions are they currently using? What are the pros and cons of these solutions?
- What are their expectations and criteria for choosing a solution?
- How do they find, evaluate, purchase, use, and discard solutions?
Think about where your target customers hang out and go to those places. You can conduct market research by:
- Direct Feedback: Engage with your users directly through forums, social media, and customer support. Listen to their feedback and suggestions to understand their needs better.
- Interviews: Conduct interviews to learn what your potential users are looking for and identify common needs and problems.
2. What is a Value Proposition?
Market research is the cornerstone for creating what will define your success: your Value Proposition.
But what exactly is a Value Proposition?
A Value Proposition is the unique value your company offers to its target customers. It answers the crucial customer question:
“What value can I get from your product or service that I can’t get from your competitors?”
Your value proposition should clearly communicate how your product or service:
- Benefits your customers
- Solves their problems
- Stands out from competitors
Value Proposition Example
- Mailchimp
Here’s Mailchimp’s value proposition from its homepage:
The statement explains the product’s value (“Turn Emails into Revenue”).
It also provides a unique differentiator to stand apart from the competition (“#1 email marketing and automations brand”) and lists outcomes (“more opens, clicks, and sales”).
Then the value proposition tells customers where to go next with a call to action (“Start Free Trial”).
Using as few words as possible. - Gmail
Let’s take Gmail, a product you might recognize. When Google launched Gmail in 2004, the email market was already crowded. But Gmail stood out by offering:
- Free email service
- Email sorting, archiving, and starring
- Spam filtering
- Conversation views
- 1 GB of cloud storage The game-changers were the conversation views, which grouped emails into threads, and a whopping 1 GB of storage, far more than any competitor at the time. These unique features were Gmail’s value propositions that set it apart from the rest.
What the Value Proposition IS NOT
A value proposition is never a slogan or a catchphrase. For example:
L’Oréal. Because we’re worth it.
Testing Your Value Proposition
Even if your product isn’t available yet, create a simple one-page website to showcase your value proposition. You can simply include text explaining features, a contact address, social media buttons, and app store links if applicable.
Your next step should be to analyze visits, bounce rates, and clicks to gauge interest. Set up an A/B test with different value propositions on separate pages if necessary. Compare results after a few days to see which version performs better.
3. Develop a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
The next step is to build an MVP, a basic version of your product with essential features to solve the user’s main problem. The goal is to launch quickly, gather user feedback, and improve rapidly.
To get started with developing an MVP, you should go through our Decoding MVP and how to build it? article.
4. Deliver Consistent Value
Sadly you are not done after getting your value proposition right.
Providing value isn’t a one-time effort; it’s an ongoing journey of improvement and adaptation. But it need not take too much effort from your end. Just keep in mind to have:
- Awesome User Experience (UX): Your product should be as easy to use as a slice of pizza on a Friday night. Keep it simple, intuitive, and fun to use.
- Customer Support: Be as quick as a cheetah in responding to their needs and as helpful as your best friend giving you advice on dating apps. Great support turns users into lifelong fans.
- Regular Updates: Always listen to your users’ feedback and keep your product fresh and relevant with regular update
5. Measure and Improve Your Value Delivery Performance
The final step in delivering value is to monitor and boost your performance. Think of this as quality management—a way to ensure your solutions meet high standards and exceed customer expectations.
One powerful way for measuring and improving your performance is the Net Promoter Score (NPS). It’s simple but effective. Just ask your customers: “How likely are you to recommend us?” Based on their responses, you can classify them into:
- Promoters: Score 9-10. They’re loyal fans who sing your praises.
- Passives: Score 7-8. They’re satisfied but not ecstatic.
- Detractors: Score 0-6. They’re unhappy and may badmouth you.
Subtract the percentage of detractors from promoters to get your NPS. The higher the score, the better your performance.
Use NPS regularly to track progress and find areas for improvement. It’s your ticket to delivering even more value to your customers!
Keep building 🛠️
